THE  MOST 
INTERESTING 
AMERICAN 


BY 


JULIAN  STREET 


IC-NRLF 


THE 

MOST  INTERESTING 
AMERICAN 


©  Pirie  MacDonald 


THE 

MOST  INTERESTING 
AMERICAN 


BY 

JULIAN  STREET 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1915 


Copyright,  1915,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 


Copyright,  1915,  by 
P.  F.  COLLIER  &  SON,  INCORPORATED 


Published,  December,  1915 


THE  MOST  INTERESTING 
AMERICAN 


THE  MOST  INTERESTING 
AMERICAN 

AS  a  child  I  remember  waiting  ea 
gerly  in  the  window  of  our  house 
to  catch  a  first  glimpse  of  an  uncle  I 
had  never  seen,  but  who  was  the  hero  of 
my  dreams,  an  army  officer  who  had 
fought  the  Indians.  When  I  had 
waited  half  the  afternoon  a  man  came 
up  our  steps  and  rang  the  bell.  He 
wore  a  dark  overcoat  and  a  derby  hat, 
and  since  I  was  looking  for  a  man  wear 
ing  a  uniform  and  sword  I  paid  slight 
heed  to  him.  But  presently  he  came 
into  the  room,  and  I  learned  that, 
after  all,  this  was  my  soldier  uncle.  To 
this  day  I  remember  the  shock  of  that 


THE/MO^T*  INT&H.ESTING  AMERICAN 


disappointment.  I  do  not  remember 
what  he  looked  like;  only  what  he  did 
not  look  like :  that  he  did  n't  look  like 
my  idea  of  an  army  officer;  that  he  was 
f  nothing  to  show  off  to  the  other  boys. 

When,  ansfeeFt  time  since,  I  first  met 
Colonel  Roosevelt,  I  felt  a  slight  re 
currence  of  this  disappointment.  I 
cannot  pretend  that  I  expected  him  to 
be  attired  in  the  khaki  of  the  cavalry 
or  to  be  heavily  armed,  but  I  did  expect 
him  to  be — what  shall  I  say? — to  be 
more  like  the  cartoons ;  to  be,  somehow, 
wilder  looking.  As  I  had  not  expected 
my  uncle  to  look  like  a  civilian,  I  had 
not  expected  Colonel  Roosevelt  to  look 
like  a  conservative  banker  of  Amster 
dam  or  The  Hague.  And  that  was 
what  he  made  me  think  of  as  he  sat  be 
hind  his  desk  in  one  of  the  editorial  of 
fices  of  the  "Metropolitan  Magazine." 
4 


THE    MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

The  only  sign  there  was  about  him  that 
afternoon  of  the  much  pictured  Rough 
Rider  was  the  broad-brimmed,  putty- 
colored  hat  which  he  laid  upon  his  desk 
as  he  came  in,  and  even  that  was  but  a 
modified  version  of  the  out-and-out 
cowboy  hat,  such  as  they  wear  around 
Medora. 

>  Though  I  missed  the  cartoon  cos 
tume,  I  was  not  to  be  cheated  of  the 
smile.     It  met   all   specifications.     As 
the  Colonel  advanced  to  greet  me  he 
showed  his  hard,  white  teeth,  wrinkled 
his     red     weather-beaten     face,     and 
squinted  his  eyes  half  shut  behind  the 
heavy  lenses  of  his  spectacles,  in  sug 
gestion,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  of  a  large, 
amiable  lion  which  comes  up  purring 
,  gently  as  though  to  say :    "  You  need  n't 
be  afraid.     I  've  just  had  luncheon."  , 
His  handshake,   too,   surprised  me. 
5 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

Though  his  manner  is  heartily  cordial, 
his  grip  in  shaking  hands  cannot  be  de 
scribed  as  firm.  It  struck  me  that  he 
had  been  obliged  to  shake  hands  much 
more  than  he  wished  to,  and  that  he 
had  formed  the  habit  of  saving  him 
self  by  letting  the  other  fellow  do  the 
gripping.  Nor  was  it  the  massive  raw- 
boned  hand  I  had  expected.  It  is  rather 
small,  very  thick  through  the  palm,  and 
— I  hesitate  to  write  it — somewhat  fat. 
Let  me  hasten  to  add,  however,  that  it 
is  far  from  being  a  weak-looking  hand, 
and  that,  as  to  color,  it  is  highly  satis 
factory,  the  back  of  it  being  as  brown 
as  a  glove.  For  the  rest,  his  torso  is 
like  a  barrel,  his  neck  thick,  short,  and 
full  of  power,  and  his  hair,  as  he  him 
self  has  said,  "has  always  been  like 
rope." 

After  I  had  met  him  a  man  asked  me 
6 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

if  he  had  aged.  I  remember  that  the 
word  "aged,"  applied  to  Colonel  Roose 
velt,  struck  me  as  bizarre.  True,  his 
mustache  is  now  quite  gray,  but  he  has 
not  aged  and  will  not  age.  He  has 
simply  ripened,  matured.  He  is  fifty- 
seven  years  old  (two  years  younger 
than  President  Wilson  and  one  year 
younger  than  Ex-President  Taft), 
looks  forty-seven,  and  evidently  feels 
as  men  of  thirty-seven  wish  they  felt. 

It  was  the  day  after  his  Plattsburg 
speech,  and  I  had  been  there  but  a  mo 
ment  when  reporters  came  to  find  out 
what  he  had  to  say  about  the  criticisms 
of  his  speech  which  had  been  printed  in 
the  morning  papers.  The  Colonel  re 
mained  seated  at  his  desk  while  he  dic 
tated  the  first  few  paragraphs  of  a 
statement  which  the  reporters  wrote 
down  word  for  word,  but  as  he  warmed 
7 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

to  his  work  he  arose  and  paced  slowly 
back  and  forth,  thinking  out  his  re 
marks  very  carefully,  speaking  in  a 
measured  tone,  enunciating  with  a  kind 
of  exaggerated  distinctness  which  is  al 
ways  characteristic  of  him,  forming 
each  syllable  elaborately  with  his  mo 
bile  lips,  the  workings  of  which  cause 
his  mustache  to  gyrate  at  times  in  a 
curious  manner.  All  these  mannerisms 
are  manifested  in  his  most  casual  con 
versation,  but  when  he  is  making  a 
"statement"  or  dictating  a  letter  they 
become  extreme. 

When  the  statement  was  complete 
Colonel  Roosevelt  resumed  his  seat  and 
for  a  moment  discussed,  informally, 
certain  aspects  of  the  Plattsburg  mat 
ter.  He  did  not  say  that  these  subse 
quent  utterances  were,  as  the  saying 
goes,  "not  for  publication,"  but  the 
8 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

change  in  his  tone  and  manner  made  the 
fact  so  clear  that  to  say  so  was  unnec 
essary.  For  the  most  part  he  spoke 
gravely,  looking  up  earnestly  at  the  re 
porters  who  were  standing  about  his 
desk,  their  eyes  fixed  intently  upon  his 
face.  Their  physiognomies  were,  like 
his,  exceedingly  grave,  and  the  thought 
came  to  me  that  the  Colonel's  facial  ex 
pression  was  somehow  reflected,  for  the 
moment,  upon  their  features.  How 
ever,  it  was  not  until  he  lapsed  briefly 
into  irony,  turning  on,  as  he  did  so,  that 
highly  specialized  smile,  that  I  perceived 
how  truly  those  young  men  reflected 
him.  At  his  smile  they  all  grinned 
open  and  responsive  grins.  To  watch 
'  their  faces  was  like  watching  the  faces 
of  an  audience  at  a  play :  when  the  hero 
was  indignant  they  became  indignant; 
when  he  sneered  they  sneered ;  and  when 
9 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

he  was  amused  they  seemed  almost  to 
quiver  with  rapturous  merriment. 

Then,  and  at  other  thnes^/1  studied 
carefully  the  Colonel's  mode  of  speech. 
Each  syllable  leaves  his  mouth  a  per 
fectly  formed  thing;  his  teeth  snap  shut 
between  the  syllables,  biting  them 
apart,  and  each  important,  each  ac 
cented  syllable  is  emphasized  not 
merely  vocally,  but  also  with  a  sharp 
forward  thrust  of  the  head  which  seems 
to  throw  the  word  clattering  into  the 
air.  When  he  utters  the  first  personal 
pronoun  it  sounds  like  "I-ye-e-e-e-," 
with  the  final  "e's"  trailing  off  like  the 
end  of  an  echo. 

Colonel  Roosevelt  feels  strongly 
about  things  and,  as  we  know,  expresses 
himself  strongly,  but  it  is  my  belief  that 
his  indescribably  vigorous  manner  of 
speaking  has  at  times  been  confused  in 
10 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

people's  minds  with  what  he  has  actu 
ally  said.  Though  his  language  is 
forcible,  it  is  never  "strong"  in  the 
usual  sense  of  that  word  as  applied 
to  language.  Regarding  strong  lan 
guage,  as  regarding  other  things,  he 
practises  what  he  preaches.  He  is  him 
self  what  he  called  Admiral  Mahan,  "a 
Christian  gentleman,"  but  as  Disraeli 
wrote  of  some  one,  "his  Christianity  is 
muscular."  I  talked  to  him  on  many 
subjects  which,  had  he  been  a  profane 
man,  would  have  elicited  profanity,  but 
he  was  not  betrayed.  Of  Mr.  Josephus 
Daniels,  he  remarked,  for  example: 
"Of  course  he  's  a  fright-ful  Secretary!" 
and  it  sounded  terrible  enough.  Again 
in  speaking  of  another  man  of  whom  he 
disapproves  he  called  him  "That  creat- 
ure!"  and  quite  the  most  awful  word  I 
have  ever  heard  him  apply  to  any  man 
11 


THE    MOST    INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

was  the  word  ffskunk-k-k!"  applied  by 
him  in  a  moment  of  great  irritation. 
Now,  of  course,  if  your  conception  of  a 
president,  or  an  ex-president,  implies 
a  cold,  exalted,  supernatural  being,  half 
man,  half  god,  with  a  flow  of  conversa 
tion  that  never  sounds  more  colloquial 
than  John  McCullough  reading  Rus- 
kin's  "Stones  of  Venice"— if  that  is 
your  conception  of  what  a  president 
should  be,  why,  then  you  might  not  be 
pleased  with  Colonel  Roosevelt  or  his 
language  in  private  conversation.  I) 


, 


Colonel  Roosevelt  drinks  a  little 
light  wine,  and  smokes  not  at  all.  A 
friend  of  his  explained  his  abstinence  to 
me  in  this  way:  "His  vitality  is  such 
that  he  does  n't  need  the  stimulation  of 
alcohol  and  nicotine,  as  some  of  the  rest 
of  us  feel  we  do.  And  it  is  the  same 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

about  swearing:  he  doesn't  need  to 
swear,  because  he  can  say  'Pacifist'  or 
'Woodrow  Wilson'  or  'William  Jen 
nings  Bryan'  in  tones  which  must  make 
the  Recording  Angel  shudder.  But 
the  only  Roosevelt  Dam  is  the  one  they 
named  for  him  in  Arizona/' 

I  was  reminded  of  this  when,  in  the 
course  of  conversation,  President  Wil 
son's  series  of  notes  to  Germany  was 
mentioned. 

"Oh,  how  I  'd  have  liked  to  praise 
Wilson  if  he'd  given  me  the  chance!" 
exclaimed  Colonel  Roosevelt  with  feel 
ing.  "I  'm  not  for  Roosevelt;  I  'm  not 
for  any  man ;  I  'm  for  the  United  States. 
Every  president  has  a  right  to  time, 
at  first,  in  which  to  formulate  his  pol 
icies.  Through  the  early  part  of  the 
Wilson  administration  I  waited  and 
hoped,  in  spite  of  a  belief  that  I  have 
13 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

long  held  that  the  pedagogic  mind  is 
generally  too  theoretical  and  abstract 
for  politics.  Even  now,  if  the  Presi 
dent  were  a  business  man,  and  had  not 
familiarized  himself  with  history,  and 
written  history,  he  might  be  forgiven. 
But  he  is  a  college  president  and  a  his 
torian,  and  has,  by  very  direct  implica 
tion,  criticized  Jefferson  and  Madison 
for  some  of  the  very  errors  of  which  he 
himself,  as  President,  has  been  guilty. 
In  his  'History  of  the  American  Peo 
ple'  he  speaks  of  Jefferson's  reduction 
of  the  army  and  navy,  refers  to  our 
'amateur'  soldiers  in  the  War  of  1812, 
and  says  that  'the  war  began  with  a  se 
ries  of  defeats  in  the  North  at  once 
ridiculous  and  disgraceful.' 

"Bryan!  Mexico!  Daniels!  No  fleet 
manoeuvers  for  the  first  two  years! 
'Too  proud  to  fight !'  And  all  these  let- 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

ters  to  Germany !"  The  Colonel  had  the 
air  of  snorting  his  contempt;  then  he 
added  slowly,  sardonically:  "Of  late  I 
have  come  almost  to  the  point  of  loath 
ing  a  bee-^/o^-ti-ful,  poZ-ished  dic-tioul" 

Colonel  Roosevelt  knows  very  well 
that  he  is  severely  criticized  by  many 
people  for  his  attacks  upon  the  adminis 
tration;  that  a  considerable  body  of  his 
fellow  citizens  attribute  those  attacks  to 
political  motives,  while  others  take  the 
point  of  view  that,  though  he  has  told 
the  truth  on  vitally  important  matters, 
he  ought  to  have  preserved  a  dignified 
silence.  In  this  connection  I  asked  him 
if  there  were  precedents  for  criticism  of 
a  president  by  an  ex-president.  He  re 
plied  : 

"John  Quincy  Adams  went  to  the 
House  of  Representatives  after  having 
been  president  and  became  the  most  bit- 
15 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

ter  critic  and  opponent  of  the  Mexican 
and  slavery  policies  of  Presidents  Ty 
ler  and  Polk."  Then,  with  a  sarcastic 
smile,  he  added:  "The  most  striking 
attack  of  this  character  I  know  of  was, 
however,  made  by  a  president  upon  an 
ex-president.  I  refer  to  the  offer  of 
twenty-five  millions  to  Colombia  by 
Mr.  Wilson  because  of  what  I  did,  as 
President,  about  the  Panama  Canal." 
These  points  will,  perhaps,  be  of  in 
terest  to  those  who  criticize  Colonel 
Roosevelt  on  the  ground  that  his  ful- 
minations  are  in  questionable  taste. 
And  it  may  be  added  that  where  ques 
tions  of  taste  are  raised,  as  against  the 
welfare  of  the  country,  taste  cuts  but  a 
small  figure  in  the  Colonel's  mind. 
Feeling  that  he  is  not  responsible  for 
the  leadership  or  fate  of  any  party,  he 
considers  that  he  can  serve  the  nation 
16 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

best  at  this  time  as  a  fearless  critic,  a 
critic  who  can  speak  freely  without  hav 
ing  to  consider  the  effect  of  his  words 
in  alienating  the  German- American, 
the  Pacifist,  or  any  other  vote.  Acting 
along  this  line  he  is  strongly  advocating 
the  adoption  by  the  United  States  of 
the  Swiss  system  of  universal  military 
training,  for  the  reasons,  first,  that  it 
would  practically  guarantee  the  coun 
try  against  invasion;  second,  that  it 
would  give  American  young  men  a 
sense  of  their  individual  duty  to  the 
Government;  and,  third,  that  the  mod 
erate  amount  of  military  discipline  and 
training  involved  would  benefit  the 
men  of  the  country  morally  and  physi 
cally. 

"The  people  who  consider  me  an  op 
portunist,"    he    remarked,     "will,     of 
course,  say  that  I  Ve  taken  up  with  pre- 
17 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

paredness  merely  to  feather  my  own 
nest,  although,  as  every  one  who  will 
take  the  trouble  to  find  out  may  ascer 
tain,  I  have  been  shouting  preparedness 
at  the  top  of  my  lungs  for  thirty-five 
years.  Also,"  the  Colonel  continued, 
"they  will  say:  'If  Roosevelt  believes 
in  the  Swiss  system  now,  why  did  n't  he 
believe  in  it  when  he  was  president?' 
I  '11  tell  you  why :  I  did  investigate  the 
Swiss  system  years  ago,  but  the  need 
of  universal  military  service,  and  like 
wise  the  folly  of  such  treaties  as  The 
Hague  Convention,  did  not  come  out 
clearly  until  this  war  started — though 
now  they  should  be  clear  to  every  one. 
No  one  should  blame  the  President  for 
not  having  favored  universal  military 
service  when  he  came  into  office,  but 
certainly  he  ought  to  be  for  it  now. 
"Then  there  are  these  Jacks  who 
18 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

say:  'What  did  Roosevelt  do  for  pre 
paredness  when  he  was  president?' 
They  try  my  patience.  I  labored  to 
get  four  battleships  a  year  with  other 
ships  in  proportion.  Finally  I  suc 
ceeded  in  getting  a  program  of  two  a 
year.  Before  I  came  in,  Congress  had 
stopped  appropriating  money  for  bat 
tleships.  My  two-battleship  program 
was  continued  until  the  Democrats 
came  into  power  in  1910.  Then  it  was 
dropped.  When  I  became  president 
the  navy  was  run  down.  I  could  only 
get  public  opinion  back  of  me  on  one 
thing,  the  navy  or  the  army,  and  I  se 
lected  the  navy  because  it  is  our  first 
line  of  defense.  -  When  I  left  office  we 
were  next  to  England  as  a  naval  power. 
Now  we  are  fourth  or  fifth.  I  sent  the 
fleet  of  sixteen  battleships  around  the 
world — a  thing  no  other  power  ever 
19 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

did,  and  which  foreign  naval  authorities 
did  not  think  could  be  done.  I  have  al 
ways  regarded  that  world  cruise  as  one 
of  the  best  things  I  ever  did  for  the 
promotion  of  peace.  It  is  right  that 
the  people  of  the  United  States  remem 
ber  the  men  who  work  for  the  navy  and 
those  who  work  against  it.  Those  who 
helped  me  to  build  up  the  fleet  were 
Lodge  of  Massachusetts,  Clarke  of  Ar 
kansas,  Beveridge  of  Indiana,  Hop 
kins  of  Illinois,  Cockrell  of  Missouri, 
and  O.  H.  Platt  of  Connecticut.  My 
secretaries  of  the  navy  were  Long, 
Moody,  Morton,  Bonaparte,  Metcalf, 
and  Newberry.  Those  who  were  the 
principal  opponents  of  the  navy  were 
Senators  Hale,  Tillman,  and  Perkins. 
Hale  was  the  big  fellow.  He  used 
Tillman.  The  manipulation  of  the 
naval  committee  was  such  that  whatever 
20 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

Mr.  Hale's  navy  yard  at  Portsmouth 
needed  it  received  and  whatever  Mr. 
Tillman's  navy  yard  (Charleston) 
needed  it  also  received,  although  both 
navy  yards  ought  to  have  been  closed. 
At  that  time  it  would  have  been  useless 
for  me  to  try  to  get  them  closed,  but 
now,  with  public  sentiment  aroused,  it 
would  be  possible,  if  the  secretary  of  the 
navy  would  do  his  duty.  But  he  has 
been  opening  useless  yards  instead  of 
closing  them. 

"As  to  our  little  army,  I  built  it  up 
and  made  it  twice  as  efficient.  The  army 
corps  I  sent  to  Cuba  under  General 
Barry  was  as  far  superior  to  Shafter's 
army,  with  which  I  went  to  Cuba,  as 
light  is  to  dark.  I  fought  as  hard  as 
I  could,  while  I  was  president,  for  big 
maneuvering  camps,  and  I  did  succeed 
in  getting  a  general  staff  for  the  army, 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

though  I  could  never  get  one  for  the 
navy." 

I  asked  his  opinion  as  to  our  duties 
in  connection  with  the  European  war. 

"I  felt  very  strongly,"  he  said,  "that 
this  Government  should  have  taken  ac 
tion  concerning  Belgium  on  the  28th, 
29th,  or  30th  of  July,  but  I  held  my 
tongue.  You  must  remember  that  it 
was  under  my  administration  that  the 
United  States  entered  The  Hague  Con 
vention.  I  should  never  have  permit 
ted  such  a  thing  had  I  not  believed  we 
acted  in  good  faith.  It  was  clearly  our 
duty  to  protest,  but  I  waited  and  said 
nothing,  thinking  that  perhaps  the 
President  wished  to  assemble  a  long  list 
of  atrocities  so  that  the  people  would 
be  behind  him  in  protesting.  But 
Dinant  followed,  and  Louvain,  and 
Reims,  and  no  protest  was  made.  In- 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

stead  we  were  instructed  to  be  'neutral 
even  in  thought'  toward  those  who  had 
broken  faith  with  us  and  with  civiliza 
tion.  So  it  went  until  the  Lusitania 
was  sunk.  If  we  had  acted  with 
strength  in  Mexico,  the  poor  souls  who 
went  down  on  the  Lusitania  would  still 
be  alive.  But  by  our  Mexican  per 
formances  we  had  shown  Europe  what 
to  expect  of  us."  Colonel  Roosevelt 
paused  for  a  moment,  then,  grimly,  he 
added:  "Haiti  is  apparently  the  kind 
of  country  we  can  handle  now.  Our 
conduct  of  international  affairs,  so  far 
as  that  vast  and  powerful  nation  is  con 
cerned,  seems  to  have  been  admirable." 

I  may  say  here,  as  well  as  at  any 
other  point,  perhaps,  that  my  interview 
with  Colonel  Roosevelt  and  my  ob 
servation  of  him  covered  several  days 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

in  both  New  York  and  Oyster  Bay. 

At  Sagamore  Hill  he  is  not  so  much 
the  Dutch  banker  as  the  American  gen 
tleman  in  his  country  home.  The  place 
is  three  miles  from  the  station,  upon  a 
height  reached  by  a  long,  winding  drive 
leading  from  the  highroad.  The 
house,  which  has  lawn  and  trees  about 
it,  and  has  a  view  over  Long  Island 
Sound,  is  a  very  American-looking 
structure  of  red  brick  and  gray  painted 
wood.  It  is  not  at  all  an  "imposing" 
residence,  although  that  other  word, 
"rambling,"  which  is  so  much  used  in  de 
scribing  houses,  may  with  justice  be  ap 
plied  to  it.  It  is  a  house  which,  from 
the  outside,  does  not  look  nearly  so  spa 
cious  as  it  actually  is. 

Through  the  center  of  it  runs  a  wide, 
dark  hall,  to  the  right  of  which,  near 
the  front  door,  is  the  library,  or  rather 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

the  room  which  Colonel  Roosevelt  uses 
as  an  office,  for  it  is  improper  to  refer 
to  any  especial  room  at  Sagamore  Hill 
as  a  library,  since  all  are  filled  with 
books.  This  room  is  a  small  museum. 
There  are  animal  skins  upon  the  floor 
and  mounted  heads  of  animals  upon  the 
walls.  Among  the  pictures  on  the 
walls  are  a  portrait  of  Mrs.  Roosevelt, 
one  of  Colonel  Roosevelt's  father,  and 
others  of  Lincoln,  Washington,  and 
Daniel  Boone.  Also  there  is  the  bronze 
cougar,  by  Alexander  Proctor,  which 
was  presented  to  the  colonel  by  his  fa 
mous  "Tennis  Cabinet,"  and  a  bronze 
cowboy,  by  Frederic  Remington. 

Even  more  like  a  museum  than  the 
library  is  the  great  living  room  which 
has  been  added,  of  late  years,  at  the 
end  of  the  hall.  It  is  a  very  large  room 
two  stories  high,  with  a  trilateral  ceil- 
25 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

ing  and  wainscoting  of  wood  in  a 
pleasing  shade  of  light  brown,  oiled 
but  not  polished.  Large  as  this  room  is, 
and  rich  as  it  is  in  trophies  and  souve 
nirs  of  all  sorts,  its  finest  quality  is  its 
freedom  from  imposingness.  It  is  not 
in  any  way  magnificent  or  austere,  yet 
it  is  a  very  handsome,  dignified  room, 
with  the  kind  of  handsomeness  which 
does  not  smite  the  eye  nor  overpower 
the  senses,  but  which,  upon  the  other 
hand,  makes  the  stranger  feel  welcome 
and  at  ease,  and  tells  him  that  he  is  in 
the  home  of  a  prosperous  but  simple 
and  cultivated  American  family.  What 
I  am  really  trying  to  say  is  that  the 
Roosevelts  live  comfortably,  but  with 
out  "side."  They  do  not  keep  a  butler 
or  a  footman ;  their  chauffeur  is  a  negro. 
Into  this  setting  the  Colonel  fits  felic 
itously.  At  Oyster  Bay  he  usually 
26 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

wears  an  olive-drab  suit  with  knicker 
bockers,  and  golf  stockings,  and  though 
he  is  a  most  hospitable  and  tactful  host, 
one  feels  that  when  the  guests  have 
gone  he  will  welcome  the  opportunity 
to  go  tramping  off  through  the  woods 
with  Mrs.  Roosevelt  or  to  take  her  row 
ing  in  the  skiff. 

Without  Mrs.  Roosevelt  the  house 
at  Sagamore  Hill  would  be  as  imper 
fect  as  without  the  Colonel.  She  is  a 
woman  of  the  greatest  charm  and  tact 
— precisely  the  kind  of  woman  to  be  the 
wife  of  a  public  man,  precisely  the  kind 
of  woman  who  so  seldom  is.  She  makes 
every  one  who  comes  to  Sagamore  Hill 
feel  instantly  at  ease,  and  she  has  the 
gracious  faculty  for  seeming  to  know 
about  and  be  genuinely  interested  in 
the  people  whom  she  meets,  instead  of 
wishing  them  to  know  about  and  be  in- 
27 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

terested  in  her.  More  than  this,  she 
has  wit.  One  day  at  luncheon  the 
Colonel  was  speaking  of  the  need  of  uni 
versal  military  service,  when  he  touched 
sarcastically  upon  the  song  entitled  "I 
Did  n't  Raise  My  Boy  to  Be  a  Soldier." 
Whereupon  Mrs.  Roosevelt,  whose  hus 
band  and  four  boys  would  go  to  war  if 
war  came,  remarked: 

"I  did  n't  raise  my  boy  to  be  the  only 
soldier!" 

While  Colonel  Roosevelt  may  not 
have  stated  publicly  what  his  exact 
course  of  action  with  regard  to  Mexico 
or  to  the  European  situation  would  have 
been  were  he  president,  it  is  generally 
understood  by  those  who  know  him  that 
he  believed  in  sending  an  army  officer  of 
the  caliber  of  General  Wood  to  Mex 
ico  to  organize  the  Mexicans  themselves 
28 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

for  the  work  of  restoring  and  maintain 
ing  order,  as  was  done  by  General 
Wood  in  Cuba.  Further,  it  is  known 
that  he  believes  that  a  protest  against 
the  invasion  of  Belgium  should  have 
been  made  by  this  Government,  not 
after  the  invasion  but  before;  that  is, 
when  it  began  to  seem  probable  that 
such  a  thing  would  occur.  He  believes 
that  the  President  of  the  United  States 
had  an  opportunity  to  play  a  part  as 
great  as  that  of  Lincoln  or  Washing 
ton,  and  that  the  way  to  have  played  it 
would  have  been  to  notify  the  German 
Government  that,  in  the  event  of  a 
violation  of  Belgian  soil,  the  United 
States  would  call  a  posse  comitatus  of 
nations  to  intervene  by  force  if  need  be. 
Colonel  Roosevelt  regards  it  as  quite 
conceivable  that  with  some  one  to  rally 
them,  England  and  Italy  would  have 
29 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

immediately  signified  their  willingness 
to  join  in  such  a  movement,  and  that 
most  of  the  nations  which  have  remained 
neutral  might  likewise  have  given  their 
support  to  so  just  a  cause.  By  this 
plan  Colonel  Roosevelt  believes  that  the 
violation  of  Belgium,  with  its  succeed 
ing  horrors,  might  actually  have  been 
prevented. 

I  spoke  to  the  Colonel  of  the  impres 
sion  held  by  many  of  those  who  do  not 
believe  in  him,  that  he  is  of  a  belliger 
ent  disposition  and  that,  to  use  the  usual 
expression,  he  "would  have  dragged  the 
country  into  war." 

"I  know  what  they  think  about  me," 
he  declared.  "Because  I  stood  up  for 
the  army  and  navy  and  for  American 
rights,  also  because  of  the  newspaper 
cartoons  of  me  as  a  Rough  Rider  car 
rying  a  club  or  shooting  revolvers  into 
30 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

the  air,  also  because  I  speak  my  mind 
when  I  think  I  ought  to,  and  because 
they  know  I  would  have  taken  action 
in  regard  to  Mexico  and  in  regard  to 
Belgium — because  of  these  things  there 
are  many  people  who  say:  'That  man 
Roosevelt  is  a  bloodthirsty  anarchist!' 
These  people  forget  or  ignore  the  fact 
that  during  the  seven  and  a  half  years 
in  which  I  was  president  we  never  fired 
a  shot  at  a  foreign  foe,  although  com 
plications  arose  from  time  to  time,  and 
although  I  insisted  absolutely  upon  pro 
tecting  American  citizens  everywhere, 
as,  for  example,  in  the  case  of  Perdi- 
caris,  when  I  demanded  Perdicaris  alive 
or  Raisuli  dead.  But,  although  I  got 
the  country  into  no  wars,  they  say  I  am 
warlike.  President  Wilson,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  a  man  of  peace.  He  has 
waged  peace  with  Mexico  and  Haiti, 
31 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

and  lost  a  lot  of  men,  and  he  has  been 
waging  peace  with  Germany,  while 
Germany  has  been  murdering  our  men, 
women,  and  children  with  her  subma 
rines. 

"Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact — though  I 
do  not  expect  these  people  who  picture 
me  as  bloodthirsty  to  believe  it — I  abhor 
war.  But  where  I  differ  with  the  paci 
fists  is  this:  I  regard  war  as  a  very 
terrible  thing,  to  be  avoided  by  every 
decent  means,  but  I  do  not  regard  it  as 
the  worst  conceivable  thing  in  the  world. 
I  think  some  things  are  even  more  to 
be  avoided  than  war;  and  these  people 
who  say  I  want  war  are  right  to  this 
extent:  Let  them  rape  just  one  Ameri 
can  woman  in  Mexico — and  they  have 
raped  many — and  I  should  have  action 
inside  six  hours.  There  was  never  any 
question  as  to  whether  the  American 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

people  would  back  me  or  not  when  I 
was  president.  They  would  always 
back  me  to  assert  American  rights  and 
defend  American  honor.  They  are  the 
same  people  to-day,  but  they  are  dulled, 
momentarily,  by  a  five  years'  debauch 
of  professional  pacifism. 

"Every  man  has  a  soft  and  easy  side 
to  him.  I  speak  now  out  of  the  abun 
dance  of  my  own  heart.  I  'm  a  domes 
tic  man.  I  have  always  wanted  to  be 
with  Mrs.  Roosevelt  and  my  children, 
and  now  with  my  grandchildren.  I  'm 
not  a  brawler.  I  detest  war.  But  if 
war  came  I  'd  have  to  go,  and  my  four 
boys  would  go,  too,  because  we  have 
ideals  in  this  family.  I  've  had  a  good 
deal  from  life,  and  I  am  not  afraid  to 
die,  but  any  man  who  is  a  father  ought 
to  know  whether  I  want  to  see  my  four 
33 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

boys  go  off  to  fight.  This  feeling  is  so 
strong  in  me  that  when  I  have  read  in 
the  papers  that  the  President  has  sent 
still  another  note  to  Germany,  fending 
off  trouble  for  a  while,  I  have  to  com 
bat  a  feeling  of  relief  by  thinking  of 
what  our  duty  is  and  of  how  dreadful  it 
would  have  been  for  me  if  men  in  the 
days  of  Washington  and  Lincoln  had 
been  'too  proud  to  fight.' 

"The  average  man  does  not  want  to 
be  disturbed.  He  does  n't  want  to  be 
called  upon  to  leave  his  business  and 
his  family,  and  do  a  distinctly  unpleas 
ant  duty.  That  is  natural  enough. 
Nevertheless,  you  can  appeal  to  either 
of  the  two  soul  sides  of  that  man.  If 
you  appeal  to  his  deepest  sense  of  duty, 
to  all  that  he  has  of  strength  and  of 
courage  and  of  high-mindedness,  you 
can  make  him  shake  off  his  sloth,  his 


THE    MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

self-indulgence,  his  short-sightedness, 
or  his  timidity,  and  stand  up  and  do, 
and  dare,  and  die  at  need,  just  as  the 
men  of  Bunker  Hill  and  Trenton  and 
Yorktown  and  Gettysburg  and  Shiloh 
did  and  dared  and  died. 

"But  if,  upon  the  other  hand,  with 
great  rhetorical  ingenuity  and  skill, 
you  furnish  that  man  with  high-sound 
ing  names  to  cloak  ignoble  action,  or 
ignoble  failure  to  act,  then  it  is  so  natu 
ral  as  to  be  pardonable  in  the  average 
man  to  accept  the  excuse  thrust  upon 
him  and  to  do  the  ignoble  thing  which 
the  man  who  ought  to  be  his  leader 
counsels  him  to  do. 

"It  is  with  the  people  of  a  nation 
much  as  with  a  regiment.  There  is  an 
old  saying  that  there  are  few  bad  regi 
ments  but  plenty  of  bad  colonels.  No 
matter  how  good  a  regiment  may  be,  if, 
35 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

in  the  stress  of  a  great  fight,  its  colonel 
advises  each  man  as  a  matter  of  duty 
to  do  whatever  is  best  for  his  own  com 
fort  and  safety,  and  if  the  colonel,  still 
uttering  lofty  abstract  sentiments,  then 
marches  to  the  rear,  it  may  be  taken  for 
granted  that  the  regiment  will  follow." 

The  anti-Roosevelt  reader,  wishing 
to  take  exception  to  everything  having 
to  do  with  Colonel  Roosevelt,  may  per 
haps  take  exception  to  the  title  of  this 
volume.  To  this  reader  I  wish  to  say 
that  my  title  is  not  only  temperate 
(mark  you,  I  refrained  from  making  it 
either  "The  Most  Interesting  Man  in 
the  World"  or  "The  Greatest  Amer 
ican")  but  that  I  can  prove  it  true.  All 
one  need  do  to  prove  Roosevelt  the 
most  interesting  American,  is  to  ask  the 
question:  "Well,  if  he  isn't,  who  is?" 
36 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

In  reply  to  this  the  anti-Roosevelt  man 
will  make  a  half-hearted  effort  to  play 
Edison  as  a  trump  card  and  will  there 
after  give  up. 

Yet  I  believe  that  even  those  who  are 
willing  to  concede  to  Colonel  Roosevelt 
everything  in  the  way  of  being  interest 
ing,  or  even  everything  in  the  way  of 
greatness,  do  not  generally  grasp,  all 
at  one  time,  the  completeness  of  his  ver 
satility. 

''in  the  course  of  casual  reading  I 
have  lately  happened  upon  three  Roose 
velt  items  from  curiously  assorted 
sources.  In  the  "Century  Magazine" 
I  read  of  the  visit  of  an  American  au 
thoress  to  the  home  of  Mistral,  the 
Provencal  poet,  and  learned  that  "a 
heavily  inscribed  photograph  of  Theo 
dore  Roosevelt  hangs  in  the  hall  in  full 
view  of  the  bust  of  Lamartine." 
37 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

In  a  New  York  newspaper  I  read  an 
interview  with  M.  Jules  Bois,  the 
French  journalist,  author,  and  poet. 
Said  M.  Bois:  "Theodore  Roosevelt  is 
perhaps  the  greatest  man  in  the  world. 
To  the  European  he  typifies  all  that  is 
essentially  American.  Abroad  he  is 
considered  the  greatest  American." 

A  day  or  two  later  I  read  that  Champ 
Clark  had  been  talking  about  Roose 
velt.  "He  knows  a  little  more  about 
more  things  than  any  man  in  the  coun 
try,"  declared  the  Speaker;  and  at  the 
risk  of  seeming,  perhaps,  to  digress,  I 
cannot  refrain  from  adding  that  Mr. 
Clark,  though  a  Democrat,  declared 
further  that  "Roosevelt  is  not  mealy- 
mouthed." 

But  let  me  point  in  another  way  the 
versatility  of  Roosevelt.  Has  it  ever 
struck  you  that  he  combines  within 
38 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

himself  qualities  and  attainments  which 
actually  are  not  combined  in  the  entire 
population  of  any  city  in  the  United 
States? 

The  city  which  would  have  in  the 
sum  of  all  its  people  a  Roosevelt  must 
possess,  among  its  inhabitants,  the  fol 
lowing  : 

1.  A     Physical     Culture     Expert: 
Roosevelt  built  himself  up  from  a  sickly 
child  to  a  man  upon  whose  vigor  it  is 
needless  to  comment. 

2.  A  Historian:  Roosevelt  began  to 
write  his  "History  of  the  Naval  War 
of  1812"  while  yet  a  Harvard  student. 

3.  A   Biographer:    See   his   "Oliver 
Cromwell,"    his    own    Autobiography, 
and  others. 


39 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

4.  An  Essayist:  He  has  written 
more  books  than  many  authors  whose 
fame  rests  upon  their  writings  alone. 
His  essays,  in  particular,  are  the  key 
to  his  actions. 

5i  rA  Natural  Scientist:  As  in  au 
thorship,  his  achievements  in  this  field 
alone  are  enough  to  make  him  a  man 
of  note.  Several  leading  natural  sci 
entists  have  said  so. 

6.  A  Big-Game  Hunter:  His  shoot 
ing,  like  his  vast  reading,  has  been  done 
in  spite  of  exceeding  nearsightedness. 
He  is  the  most  farsighted  nearsighted 
man  the  country  has  produced. 

7.  'An    Explorer    and    Discoverer: 
Africa;  South  America;  the  River  of 
Doubt. 

40 


THE   MOST    INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

8.  A  Critic:  Just  listen  at  any  time! 

9.  A    Former    Cowboy:    For    two 
years  he  was  a  ranchman. 

10.  Ten  or  a  dozen  LL.D/s:  He  has 
them  from  Harvard,  Yale,  Columbia, 
etc. 

11.  An  Editor:  It  used  to  be  the 
"Outlook."     Now  he  writes  signed  edi 
torials   for  the   "Metropolitan   Maga 


zine." 


12.  A  Former  Member  of  the  State 
Legislature:  In  his  early  twenties  he 
was  minority  leader  at  Albany. 

13.  A  Practical  Reformer:  No  liv 
ing  man  has  brought  about  so  many 
real  reforms. 

41 


THE   MOST    INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

14.  A  Veteran  Colonel  of  Cavalry: 
He  says  his  "one  great  day"  was  that 
of  San  Juan  Hill. 

15.  A  Former  Assistant  Secretary 
of  the  Navy:  He  said  then,  and  long 
before,  all  the  things  most  of  us  are  just 
finding  out  about  preparedness. 

16.  A   Former  Governor:  He  was 
Governor  of  New  York,  Assistant  Sec 
retary  of  the  Navy,  and  Colonel  of  the 
Rough  Riders  all  in  less  than  one  year. 

17.  A  Nobel  Peace  Prize  Winner: 
For  the  Russo-Japanese  peace.     But 
people  call  him  "dangerous." 

18.  A  Former  Vice-President:  They 
did  it  to  get  rid  of  him,  but — 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

19.  A  Former  President:  The 
youngest  of  all  presidents.  The  presi 
dent  who  sent  the  battle  fleet  around 
the  world,  wrho  said  "Perdicaris  alive  or 
Raisuli  dead,"  who  concluded  the  peace 
of  Portsmouth,  and  who  started  the 
Panama  Canal. 

New  Haven,  Connecticut,  comes 
nearest,  perhaps,  to  having  all  these 
things  among  its  citizens,  for  it  con 
tains  Ex-President  Taft,  Ex-Gover 
nor  Baldwin,  President  Hadley  and  the 
Yale  faculty,  Harry  Whitney,  hunter 
and  explorer,  and  the  redoubtable 
"Mosey"  King.  But  on  other  points 
New  Haven  fails.  The  only  thing  it 
has  which  Roosevelt  has  n't  is  Savin 
Rock — and  there  are  those  who  think 
there  is  even  a  touch  of  Savin  Rock 
about  the  Colonel. 

43 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  there 
are  important  Roosevelt  items  not  in 
cluded  in  my  list.  As  a  creator  of  pop 
ular  and  telling  phrases,  he  surpasses 
George  Ade  and  Oliver  Herford  com 
bined.  He  has  not  only  the  gift  for 
characterizing  in  a  few  words,  but  for 
coining  new  expressions  and  revivify 
ing  old  ones. 

Some  one  asks  him  how  he  is  feel 
ing.  "I  'm  feeling  as  fine  as  a  bull 
moose!"  replies  the  Colonel — and  a  po 
litical  party  has  its  name.  "The  big 
stick/'  "the  square  deal,"  "parlor  So 
cialists,"  "rosewater  reformers,"  "out 
patients  of  Bedlam,"  "race  suicide," 
"nature  faker,"  "muckraker,"  "molly 
coddle,"  "Armageddon,"  "malefactor 
of  great  wealth,"  "the  strenuous  life," 
"undesirable  citizens,"  and,  more  lately, 
"hyphenated  Americans":  these  expres- 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

sions  which  I  happen  to  remember,  and 
many  more  which  you  will  think  of, 
were  either  minted  or  put  in  general 
circulation  by  the  Colonel.  He  goes 
hunting  and  the  "Teddy  Bear"  comes 
into  being;  he  becomes  a  soldier  and 
both  the  term  and  type  "Rough  Rider" 
is  made  known  to  us.  Everything  he 
touches,  everything  he  mentions,  is 
made  vital  through  him  as  through  con 
tact  with  a  dynamo.  A  friend  of  mine 
who  has  known  the  Colonel  a  long  time 
gives  me  the  following  items  from 
among  things  that  he  has  heard  him  say. 
Once  when  Roosevelt  wished  to  explain 
the  extreme  utterances  of  certain  re 
formers  he  said:  "Every  reform  has 
a  lunatic  fringe."  Again,  in  speaking 
of  certain  very  minor  European  mon- 
archs  he  termed  them  "the  bush-league 
czars."  One  man  he  pronounced  "As 
45 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

clean  as  a  hound's  tooth,"  while  an 
other,  a  certain  so-called  statesman, 
was  "An  elderly  fuddy-duddy  with 
sweetbread  brains."  Somebody  once 
asked  him  about  European  kings  whom 
he  had  met.  Whereupon  the  Colonel 

answered:     "X [mentioning     a 

monarch]  would  be  president  of  some 
little  peace  society  if  he  lived  over  here, 
but  the  kaiser  would  swing  his  ward." 
At  another  time  when  some  people, 
failing  to  appreciate  the  democracy  of 
Roosevelt's  instincts,  the  enormous 
Americanism  of  the  man,  said  that  he 
wished  to  be  a  king,  he  declared  to  my 
friend:  "The  people  who  say  that 
haven't  seen  as  many  kings  as  I 
have.  Kings  are  a  kind  of  cross  be 
tween  Vice-President  and  a  permanent 
leader  of  the  four  hundred."  Which 
reminds  me,  by  the  way,  that  of  all 
46 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

Roosevelt's  positions  there  is  just  one 
with  which  we  know  he  was  born;  and 
that  one,  social  position  in  New  York, 
is  a  thing  for  which,  considered  by  it 
self,  he  has  nothing  but  contempt. 

Colonel  Roosevelt's  sense  of  humor 
is  highly  individualized.  It  seems  to 
me  that  his  vast  experience  of  life  in  its 
larger  aspects  has  caused  his  sense  of 
humor  to  develop  into  Gargantuan 
proportions,  so  that  the  ordinary  little 
joke-for-a-joke's-sake  makes  no  great 
appeal  to  him.  I  believe  that  he  ex 
pects  a  joke,  as  he  expects  a  man,  to  do 
something,  and  that  he  is  somewhat  in 
clined  to  be  impatient  of  what  is  merely 
amusing,  just  as  he  is  impatient  of 
mere  eloquence  in  speeches  and  of  the 
interruption  of  his  own  speeches  by  ap 
plause.  In  speaking,  as  in  writing,  he 
does  not  try  for  eloquence,  but  merely 
47 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

to  be  clear  and  vigorous.  He  writes 
slowly  and  with  difficulty,  using  a  pad 
and  pencil  and  making  many  correc 
tions. 

His  appreciation  of  situations  which 
are  grotesque  or  comic  is  very  rich. 
Time  and  again,  while  in  the  White 
House,  he  took  boyish  enjoyment  in  the 
weirdly  assorted  gatherings  at  his 
luncheon  table.  He  has  been  known  to 
entertain,  at  once,  the  British  ambas 
sador  and  the  wildest  kind  of  cowboys. 
I  doubt  that  anything  ever  afforded 
him  more  amusement  than  furnishing 
a  prize-fighter  friend  of  his  (John  L. 
Sullivan,  I  think)  with  a  letter  of  in 
troduction  to  the  dignified  and  sedate 
Governor  Hughes  of  New  York,  now 
justice  of  the  Supreme  Court.  Having 
a  fine  appreciation  of  both  these  men, 
Colonel  Roosevelt  was  fascinated  with 
48 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

his  mental  picture  of  their  meeting  and 
their  conversation,  though  it  is  perhaps 
needless  to  say  he  gave  the  letter  only 
for  good  reasons. 

It  was  characteristic  of  him  that  he 
knew  them  both  well,  for  his  taste  in 
men,  like  his  taste  for  affairs,  is  widely 
assorted.  Once  I  asked  him  which  of 
his  various  activities  he  had  most  en 
joyed,  and  he  was  unable  to  say.  So 
it  is  with  men.  He  likes  prize  fighters, 
painters,  cowboys,  poets,  diplomatists, 
hunters,  sculptors,  soldiers,  naturalists, 
football  players,  novelists,  men  who  can 
tell  him  about  Irish  or  Norwegian 
sagas,  about  ancient  Greek  coins,  or 
about  almost  anything  else.  It  was  the 
great  sculptor,  Saint-Gaudens,  who 
spoke  to  him  one  day  of  the  beauty  of 
the  old  Greek  coins,  and  it  was  charac 
teristic  of  Roosevelt  that  he  immedi- 
49 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

ately  caused  new  coins — the  most  beau 
tiful  since  those  of  ancient  Greece — to 
be  designed  and  minted.  So  also,  when 
he  set  his  mind  to  architecture  and 
landscape  gardening,  a  fine  arts  council 
composed  of  noted  men,  serving  with 
out  pay,  came  into  being,  and  the  new 
public  buildings  in  Washington  began 
to  be  harmoniously  designed  and 
placed.  This  fine  arts  council  was, 
however,  instinctively  resented  by  the 
pork-barrel  senators  and  congressmen, 
and  it  was  disbanded  by  Mr.  Taft 
shortly  after  he  became  president.  At 
one  hour  of  the  day  Roosevelt  would  be 
talking  army  reforms  with  an  officer, 
at  another  jujutsu  with  a  Japanese,  or 
he  would  be  writing  to  some  poet  whose 
work  he  had  seen  and  liked. 

And  sometimes,  when  there  was  need, 
he  would  provide  a  government  posi- 
50 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

tion  for  a  man  whose  work  was  good 
but  not  remunerative.  Along  with  the 
rest  of  him  there  is  something  of  the 
artist,  and  that  is  a  tribute  which  can 
be  paid  with  honesty  to  but  few  Ameri 
can  presidents. 

Naturally  those  of  us  who  admire 
him  like  to  call  Roosevelt  a  "typical 
American,"  because  it  pleases  us  to 
think  that  an  exceptional  American  is 
typical.  In  so  far  as  he  is  a  type  pro 
duced  by  the  United  States  he  is  typi 
cal;  in  so  far  as  that  type  is  common,  he 
is  not.  He  has  always  been  the  excep 
tion.  A  jack-of -all-trades,  he  is  mas 
ter  of  many.  He  rushes  in  where 
angels  fear  to  tread,  but  he  is  no  fool. 
He  has  been  called  a  "man  of  destiny," 
but  destiny  has  not  done  all  the  work, 
any  more  than  God  has  done  all  the 
51 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

work  for  the  kaiser.  Destiny  has  not 
helped  to  make  Roosevelt,  as  much  as 
Roosevelt  has  helped  to  make  destiny — 
or  perhaps  I  should  say  to  make  destiny 
make  Roosevelt.  For  Roosevelt  is  not 
a  living  proof  of  what  a  man  may  do 
with  gifts ;  he  is  a  living  proof  of  what 
a  man  may  do  despite  the  lack  of  them. 
Out  of  a  weak  child  he  made  a  powerful 
man;  out  of  half -blindness  he  made  a 
boxer,  an  omnivorous  reader,  a  good 
shot;  out  of  a  liking  for  authorship, 
rather  than  a  talent  for  it,  he  made  a 
distinguished  author;  out  of  natural 
force  and  a  feeling  for  the  charm  of 
things  he  made  a  style  not  only  clear 
and  forceful  but,  at  times,  charming. 
Out  of  a  voice  and  a  manner  never 
meant  for  oratory  he  made  a  speaker. 
Out  of  a  sense  of  duty  he  made  a 
52 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

soldier,  out  of  a  soldier  a  governor,  out 
of  a  governor  a  vice-president,  and— 
wonder  of  wonders— out  of  a  vice-presi 
dent  a  president ! 

I  asked  him  once  if  he  thought  he  had 
genius. 

"Most  certainly  I  have  not,"  he  de 
clared  with  unhesitating  conviction. 
"I  'm  no  orator,  and  in  writing  I  'm 
afraid  I  'm  not  gifted  at  all,  except  per 
haps  that  I  have  a  good  instinct  and  a 
liking  for  simplicity  and  directness.  If 
I  have  anything  at  all  resembling 
genius,  it  is  in  the  gift  for  leadership. 
For  instance,  if  we  have  war,  you  '11  see 
that  young  fighting  officers  of  the  army 
want  to  be  in  my  command."  Then, 
with  a  smile  and  in  a  manner  the  frank 
ness  of  which  was  indescribably  pleas 
ing,  he  declared:  "To  tell  the  truth,  I 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

like  to  believe  that,  by  what  I  have  ac 
complished  without  great  gifts,  I  may 
be  a  source  of  encouragement  to  Ameri 
can  boys." 

No  one  knows  better  than  Colonel 
Roosevelt  the  opinion  in  which  he  is 
held  by  various  groups  of  his  fellow 
countrymen.  An  interesting  example 
of  this  knowledge  occurs  in  his  Auto 
biography,  where  he  tells  how  his 
successful  conclusion  of  the  Russo- 
Japanese  peace  at  Portsmouth  made 
him  personally  unpopular  with  the  peo 
ple  of  both  Russia  and  Japan  be 
cause  each  nation  thought  that  terms 
more  favorable  to  itself  might  have 
been  exacted.  He  writes : 

"Of  course  what  I  had  done  in  con 
nection  with  the  Portsmouth  peace  was 
misunderstood  by  some  good  and  sin 
cere  people.  Just  as  after  the  settle- 
54 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

ment  of  the  coal  strike  there  were  per 
sons  who  thereupon  thought  that  it  was 
in  my  power,  and  was  my  duty,  to  settle 
all  other  strikes,  so  after  the  peace  of 
Portsmouth  there  were  other  persons — 
not  only  Americans,  by  the  way — who 
thought  it  my  duty  forthwith  to  make 
myself  a  kind  of  international  Meddle 
some  Matty  and  interfere  for  peace 
and  justice  promiscuously  over  the 
world.  Others,  with  a  delightful  non 
sequitur,  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that 
inasmuch  as  I  had  helped  to  bring 
about  a  beneficent  and  necessary  peace 
I  must  necessarily  have  changed  my 
mind  about  war  being  ever  necessary. 
A  couple  of  days  after  peace  was  con 
cluded  I  wrote  to  a  friend:  'Don't  you 
be  misled  by  the  fact  that  just  at  the 
moment  men  are  speaking  well  of  me. 
They  will  speak  ill  soon  enough.  As 
55 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

Loeb  remarked  to  me  to-day,  some  time 
soon  I  shall  have  to  spank  some  little 
international  brigand,  and  then  all  the 
well-meaning  idiots  will  turn  and  shriek 
that  this  is  inconsistent  with  what  I  did 
at  the  peace  conference,  whereas  in 
reality  it  will  be  exactly  in  line  with 
it.' " 

Those  who  would  have  the  key  to 
"My  Policies,"  as  the  saying  used  to  go 
when  Roosevelt  was  in  the  White 
House,  those  who  would  have  the  key 
to  Roosevelt  himself,  should  read  his 
Autobiography.  It  is  rich  reading. 
Those  who  would  have  a  bunch  of  keys 
should  also  read  his  "Presidential  Ad 
dresses  and  State  Papers"  and  the  es 
says  published  under  the  title  "Ameri 
can  Ideals."  The  last-mentioned  col 
lection  holds  peculiar  interest  because, 
56 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

though  written  about  twenty  years  ago, 
when  he  was-  president  of  the  police 
board  of  New  York,  it  is  literally 
packed  with  statements  which,  with  the 
change  of  a  word  here  and  there,  may 
be  directly  and  helpfully  applied  to  the 
grave  conditions  which  the  nation  faces 
now.  To  read  these  early  writings 
without  acknowledging  the  author's 
prophetic  understanding  is  to  be  an  in 
tellectual  contortionist  or  else  wilfully 
to  withhold  from  him  the  "square  deal." 
I  do  not  say  that  the  reader  of  Roose 
velt's  works  must  inevitably  become  a 
Roosevelt  man,  but  I  do  say  that  he 
must  become  a  fairer,  more  intelligent, 
Roosevelt  critic.  Indeed,  I  might  go 
farther  and  declare — despite  the  well- 
known  American  prerogative  to  express 
loose  opinions  on  all  subjects — that  the 
opinion  of  Roosevelt,  good  or  bad,  ex- 
57 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

pressed  by  a  man  who  has  failed  to  re 
view  Roosevelt's  political  life  as  a 
whole,  is  not  worth  listening  to.  I  base 
this  contention  on  two  facts:  First, 
that  before  I  read  the  Roosevelt  works 
my  own  opinions  upon  Roosevelt  were 
loose  and  unintelligent.  Second,  the 
fact  that  his  activities  in  the  last  thirty- 
seven  years  have  been  so  numerous  and 
so  diversified  that  the  casual  citizen  for 
gets  the  larger  part  of  them. 

In  short,  I  believe  that  we  are  still 
too  close  to  Mr.  Roosevelt  to  appreciate 
him  fully.  Americans  lack  perspective 
on  him,  though  I  believe  that  Euro 
peans,  regarding  him  from  afar,  have 
a  better  appreciation  of  the  rugged  out 
lines  of  his  character,  precisely  as  those 
who  look  at  a  mountain  twenty-five  or 
fifty  miles  away  can  see  it  clearly,  while 
those  who  live  upon  its  slopes  are  con- 
58 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

scious  only  of  the  little  tract  immedi 
ately  about  them. 

Then  there  is  the  other  side  of  Roose 
velt,  the  side  so  many  men  have  seen 
and  adored.  When  he  was  president 
he  never  had  what  is  termed  "front." 
He  never  posed  like  a  white  marble 
statue  of  a  statesman  in  the  entabla 
ture  of  a  white  marble  temple.  He 
was,  and  is,  one  of  us.  We  call  him 
"T.  R.,"  and  he  is  perhaps  the  only 
man  in  the  country  who  is  known  to  us 
all  by  his  initials.  We  call  him 
"Teddy,"  but  we  do  not  call  a  marble 
statue  "Woody." 

Our  "Teddy"  does  not  suggest  statu 
ary.  He  is,  perhaps,  more  like  the 
movies — like  a  moving  picture  of  our 
selves  as  we  should  like  to  be.  He  is 
brave,  hardy,  and  adventurous.  We 
59 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

should  like  to  be  brave,  hardy,  and  ad 
venturous,  too,  and  we  should  be  if  it 
were  n't  for  all  kinds  of  things  that  in 
terfered.  He  knows  what  he  thinks. 
Well,  don't  we  know  what  we  think, 
sometimes?  Certainly!  He  says  what 
he  thinks.  So  do  we — except  when  we 
think  it  might  get  us  into  trouble. 
When  some  one  is  a  liar  he  calls  him  one. 
How  like  us  he  is !  We  Ve  often 
wanted  to  do  that,  too.  Yes,  Teddy  is 
a  "regular  fellow" — just  like  us.  Of 
course  we  admire  that  side  of  him! 

But  then  there  's  another  side.  Cer 
tainly  Teddy  is  all  right  in  his  way. 
Yes.  He  's  all  right  so  long  as  he  's 
like  us.  But  the  trouble  with  him  is 
that  he  is  n't  conservative,  as  we  are. 
He  is  n't  quite  safe.  He  's  got  a  little 
too  much — too  much  this-and-that  about 
him.  It 's  too  bad !  We  could  tell  him 
60 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

what  to  do,  but  the  trouble  is,  he  's  head 
strong.  He  won't  listen.  He  just 
goes  roaring  on  like  a  steam  engine  in 
pantaloons. 


61 


ROOSEVELT  AS  A  PROPHET 


ROOSEVELT  AS  A  PROPHET 

THIRTY-TWO    YEARS    AGO 

From  "History  of  the  Naval  War  of  1812" 
(written  in  1883) 

A  miserly  economy  in  preparation  may  in 
the  end  involve  a  lavish  outlay  of  men  and 
money  which  after  all  comes  too  late  to  more 
than  partially  offset  the  evils.  It  was  crim 
inal  folly  of  Jefferson  and  Madison  not  to 
give  us  a  force  of  regulars  during  the  twelve 
years  before  the  struggle.  The  necessity  for 
an  efficient  navy  is  now  so  evident  that  only 
our  almost  incredible  shortsightedness  pre 
vents  our  preparing  one. 

TWENTY    YEARS    AGO 

From  "The  War  Between  England  and  the  United 
States"  (written  in  1895) 

In  America  in  one  crisis  at  least  the  Peace 
at  any  Price  men  had  cost  the  nation  more  in 
blood  and  wealth  than  the  political  leaders 
65 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

most  indifferent  to  war  have  ever  cost  it. 
There  never  was  a  better  example  of  the  ulti 
mate  evil  caused  by  a  timid  effort  to  secure 
peace  through  the  sacrifice  of  honor  and  the 
refusal  to  make  preparations  for  war  than 
that  afforded  by  the  War  of  1812.  Nothing 
can  atone  for  the  loss  of  the  virile  fighting 
virtues.  Though  war  is  an  evil,  an  inglori 
ous  or  unjustifiable  peace  is  a  worse  evil. 
Peace  is  worth  nothing  unless  it  comes  with 
sword  girt  on  thigh.  .  .  .  The  people  as  a 
whole  deserved  just  the  administrative  weak 
ness  with  which  they  were  cursed  by  their 
rulers.  Instead  of  keeping  quiet  and  making 
preparations,  they  made  no  preparations 
and  indulged  in  vainglorious  boasting.  Con 
tempt  is  the  emotion  of  all  others  which  a 
nation  should  be  least  willing  to  arouse ;  and 
contempt  was  aroused  by  the  attitude  of 
those  Americans  who  refused  to  provide  an 
adequate  navy  and  declined  to  put  the  coun 
try  into  shape  for  self-defense.  .  .  .  The  vic 
tory  in  any  contest  will  go  to  the  nation  that 
has  earned  it  by  thorough  preparation. 


66 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

NINETEEN    YEARS    AGO 

From  "The  Bachelor  of  Art,"  March,  1896 
It  is  strange,  indeed  .  .  .  there  should 
exist  men  who  actually  oppose  the  build 
ing  of  a  navy  by  the  United  States,  nay,  even 
more,  actually  oppose  so  much  as  the 
strengthening  of  the  coast  defenses,  on  the 
ground  that  they  prefer  to  have  this  country 
too  feeble  to  resent  any  insult,  in  order  that 
it  may  owe  its  safety  to  the  contemptuous 
forbearance  which  it  is  hoped  this  feeble 
ness  will  inspire  in  foreign  powers.  No 
Tammany  alderman,  no  venal  legislator,  no 
demagogue  or  corrupt  politician  ever  strove 
more  effectively  than  these  men  are  striv 
ing  to  degrade  the  nation  and  to  make  one 
ashamed  of  the  name  of  America. 

EIGHTEEN    YEAES    AGO 

From  "Washington's  Forgotten  Maxim,"  first 
delivered  as  an  address  in  June,  1897 

In  this  country  there  is  not  the  slightest 
danger  of  an  over-development  of  the  war 
like  spirit,  and  there  never  has  been  any 
such  danger.  In  all  our  history  there  has 
never  been  a  time  when  preparedness  for 
war  was  any  menace  to  peace. 
67 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

From  the  same  address 

A  century  has  passed  since  Washington 
wrote:  'To  be  prepared  for  war  is  the  most 
effectual  means  to  promote  peace.'  We  pay 
this  maxim  the  lip  loyalty  we  so  often  pay  to 
Washington's  words ;  but  it  has  never  sunk 
deep  into  our  hearts.  Indeed,  of  late  years 
many  persons  have  refused  it  even  the  poor 
tribute  of  lip  loyalty. 

American  Ideals.    Address  at  Naval  War 
College,  1S97 

If  we  forget  that  we  can  only  secure  peace 
by  being  ready  and  willing  to  fight  for  it  we 
may  some  day  have  bitter  cause  to  realize 
that  a  rich  nation  which  is  slothful,  timid  or 
unwieldly,  is  an  easy  prey  for  any  people 
which  still  retains  those  most  valuable  of  all 
qualities,  the  soldierly  virtues.  We  must 
strive  to  build  up  those  fighting  qualities  for 
the  lack  of  which  in  a  nation  no  refinement, 
no  culture,  no  wealth,  no  material  prosperity 
can  atone.  To  see  this  country  at  peace 
with  foreign  nations  we  will  be  wise  to  place 
reliance  upon  a  first  class  fleet  or  first  class 
battleships  rather  than  on  any  arbitration 
68 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

treaty  which  the  wit  of  man  can  devise. 
Peace  is  a  goddess  only  when  she  comes  with 
sword  girt  on  thigh.  Cowardice  in  a  race 
is  the  unpardonable  sin,  and  a  wilful  failure 
to  prepare  for  danger  may  be  as  bad  as 
cowardice.  The  timid  man  who  can  not  fight, 
and  the  selfish,  shortsighted  or  foolish  man 
who  will  not  take  the  steps  that  will  enable 
him  to  fight  stand  on  almost  the  same  plane. 
The  men  who  have  preached  universal  peace 
in  terms  that  have  prepared  for  the  peace 
which  permitted  the  continuance  of  the  Ar 
menian  butcheries  have  inflicted  a  wrong  on 
humanity  greater  than  would  be  inflicted  by 
the  most  reckless  and  war  loving  despot. 
Better  a  thousand  times  err  on  the  side  of 
over-readiness  to  fight  than  to  err  on  the  side 
of  tame  submission  to  injury,  or  cold  blooded 
indifference  to  the  misery  of  the  oppressed. 

SIXTEEN    YEARS    AGO 

From  "Military  Preparedness  and   Unpreparedness," 
"The  Century  Magazine"  November,  1899 

The  mistakes,  the  blunders,  and  the  short 
comings  in  the  army  management  during  the 
summer  of  1898  should  be  credited  mainly 
69 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

not  to  any  one  in  office  in  1898,  but  to 
the  public  servants  of  the  people,  and  there 
fore  to  the  people  themselves,  who  per 
mitted  the  army  to  rust  since  the  Civil  War 
with  a  wholly  faulty  administration,  and 
with  no  chance  whatever  to  perfect  itself  by 
practice,  as  the  navy  was  perfected.  In  like 
manner,  any  trouble  that  may  come  upon  the 
army,  and  therefore  upon  the  nation,  in  the 
next  few  years,  will  be  due  to  the  failure  to 
provide  for  a  thoroughly  reorganized  regu 
lar  army  of  adequate  size  last  year ;  and  for 
this  failure  the  members  in  the  Senate  and 
the  House  who  took  the  lead  against  increas 
ing  the  regular  army,  and  reorganizing  it, 
will  be  primarily  responsible.  ...  In  the 
Santiago  campaign  the  army  was  more  than 
once  uncomfortably  near  grave  disaster, 
from  which  it  was  saved  by  the  remarkable 
fighting  qualities  of  its  individual  fractions, 
and,  above  all,  by  the  incompetency  of  its 
foes.  To  go  against  a  well-organized,  well- 
handled,  well-led  foreign  foe  under  such  con 
ditions  would  inevitably  have  meant  failure 
and  humiliation.  .  .  .  The  whole  staff  sys 
tem,  and  much  else,  should  be  remodeled. 
70 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

Above  all,  the  army  should  be  practised  in 
mass  in  the  actual  work  of  marching  and 
camping.  Only  thus  will  it  be  possible  to 
train  the  commanders,  the  quartermasters, 
the  commissaries,  the  doctors,  so  that  they 
may  by  actual  experience  learn  to  do  their 
duties,  as  naval  officers  by  actual  experience 
have  learned  to  do  theirs. 

From  "The  Strenuous  Life,"  first  delivered 
as  a  speech  in  Chicago,  1899 

Our  army  needs  complete  reorganization 
— not  merely  enlarging — and  the  reorganiza 
tion  can  only  come  as  the  result  of  legisla 
tion.  A  proper  general  staff  should  be  es 
tablished.  Above  all,  the  army  must  be 
given  the  chance  to  exercise  in  large  bodies. 
Never  again  should  we  see,  as  we  saw  in  the 
Spanish  War,  major  generals  in  command  of 
divisions  who  had  never  before  commanded 
three  companies  together  in  the  field. 

From  the  same  speech 

The  army  and  the  navy  are  the  sword 
and  the  shield  which  the  nation  must  carry  if 
she  is  to  do  her  duty  among  the  nations  of 
the  earth — if  she  is  not  to  stand  merely  as 
the  China  of  the  Western  Hemisphere. 
71 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

FOURTEEN    YEARS    AGO 

From  Message  to  Congress,  December,  1901 

The  American  people  must  either  build  and 
maintain  an  adequate  navy  or  else  make  up 
their  minds  definitely  to  accept  a  secondary 
position  in  international  affairs.  There  is 
no  surer  way  of  courting  disaster  than  to  be 
opulent,  aggressive  and  unarmed.  It  is  nec 
essary  to  keep  our  army  at  the  highest  point 
of  efficiency. 

From  Roosevelt's  Message  to  the  -first  session  of  the 
Fifty -seventh  Congress,  December,  1901 

So  far  from  being  in  any  way  a  provoca 
tion  to  war,  an  adequate  and  highly  trained 
navy  is  the  best  guarantee  against  war,  the 
cheapest  and  most  effective  peace  insurance. 
The  cost  of  building  and  maintaining  such  a 
navy  represents  the  very  lightest  premium 
for  insuring  peace. 

From  the  same  message 

All  we  want  is  peace ;  and  toward  this 
end  we  wish  to  be  able  to  secure  the  same  re 
spect  for  our  rights  from  others  which  we 
are  eager  and  anxious  to  extend  to  their 
rights  in  return,  to  insure  fair  treatment  to 
72 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING  AMERICAN 

us  commercially,  and  to  guarantee  the  safety 
of  the  American  people. 

From  "National  Duties"  a  speech  at  the  Minnesota 
State  Fair,  September  2,  1901 

A  good  many  of  you  are  probably  ac 
quainted  with  the  proverb :  "  'Speak  softly 
and  carry  a  big  stick — you  will  go  far.'  "... 
Whenever  on  any  point  we  come  in  contact 
with  a  foreign  power,  I  hope  we  shall  al 
ways  strive  to  speak  courteously  and  re 
spectfully  of  that  foreign  power.  Let  us 
make  it  evident  that  we  intend  to  do  justice. 
Then  let  us  make  it  equally  evident  that  we 
will  not  tolerate  injustice  being  done  to  us 
in  return.  Let  us  further  make  it  evident 
that  we  use  no  words  which  we  are  not  pre 
pared  to  back  up  with  deeds.  Such  an  at 
titude  will  be  the  surest  possible  guarantee 
of  that  self-respecting  peace,  the  attainment 
of  which  is  and  must  ever  be  the  prime  aim 
of  a  self-governing  people. 

THIRTEEN    YEARS    AGO 
From  Message  to  Congress,  December,  1902 

Keep  the  army  at  the  highest  point  of  ef 
ficiency.     Without  maneuvering  our  army  in 
73 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

bodies  of  some  little  size  it  is  folly  to  expect 
that  it  can  be  handled  to  advantage  in  the 
event  of  hostilities  with  any  serious  foe.  Our 
officers  and  enlisted  men  must  be  thoroughly 
trained,  especially  in  marksmanship.  There 
is  urgent  need  for  a  general  staff.  There 
should  be  no  halt  in  the  work  of  building  up 
the  navy,  providing  every  year  additional 
fighting  craft.  In  battle  the  only  shots  that 
count  are  the  shots  that  hit. 

TWELVE    YEARS    AGO  J 

From  a  speech  made  in  San  Francisco,  May  14,  1903 
Remember  that  after  the  war  has  begun 
it  is  too  late  to  improvise  a  navy.     A  naval 
war  is  two-thirds  settled  in  advance. 

TEN    YEARS    AGO 

From  a  speech  at  Williams  College,  June  22nd,  1905 
Keep  on  building  and  maintaining  at  the 
highest  point  of  efficiency  the  United  States 
navy,  or  quit  trying  to  be  a  big  nation.  Do 
one  or  the  other. 

EIGHT    YEARS    AGO 

From  a  speech  at  Cairo,  III.,  October,  1907 
Our  little  army  should  be  trained  to  the 
highest  point. 

-  74 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   AMERICAN 

Let  us  build  up  and  maintain  at  the  high 
est  point  of  efficiency  the  United  States  navy. 
The  best  way  to  parry  is  to  hit — no  fight 
can  ever  be  won  without  hitting — and  we  can 
hit  only  by  means  of  the  navy.  The  navy 
must  be  built  and  all  its  training  given  in 
time  of  peace.  When  once  war  has  broken 
out  it  is  too  late  to  do  anything. 


75 


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